A Circle in a Spiral
by LemondropDead
Summary: Some things are inevitable.
1. Part One

**A Circle in a Spiral**

Sometimes Ben feels like there's this great empty swath of his childhood, a colossal bundle of reasons and thoughts and feelings that just decided to walk off one day without his permission. There's this emptiness – a huge black hole, right in the center of his chest, only he can't remember how it got there. Some days it's a mosquito bite, but other days it's a gunshot wound, open and bleeding.

On days like that, he can't feel anything except crushing-burning-_hot_ anger.

There's something missing in his life and he can't figure out what it is.

Hell, there's a ton 'a stuff missing – a steady source of income for his mom, a nice house, money for college, his sonovabitch good-for-nothin' dad – but those are things that Ben can't have. No matter how hard his mom tries, she never gets promoted or the toilet backs up again or the newest boyfriend is a total asshat. When he was a kid, everything was fine. Nice neighborhood, nice friends, simple and clean and apple pie. Then they moved a couple times (for no reason, or if there was one then Ben didn't know it) and couldn't pay the mortgage on the house because Mom couldn't get a job, etc. Shit happened. _Life_ happened.

Nothing _ever_ goes right – nothing.

There's a back parking lot behind the gas station on the corner of River Street and Jayne Ave., where the kids at the high school throw rocks at the security cameras and smoke. Even though Ben doesn't smoke – he's tried, couldn't stand the taste and the kids called him a wuss – he still hangs out back there, once everyone's gone. The place reeks of weed and desperation but he doesn't mind somehow. And some days, he almost likes it. It's odd to find happiness or peace in misery, weird and twisted and probably sick, and he's probably the only person in the world like that.

One day, Ben sees two people – a tall guy with greasy black hair, and a girl in a biker jacket – drag the store clerk into the back parking lot. He hears them coming, hear the clerk thrashing against the pavement, and hides behind a dumpster. Even in the cooling September air, it's hot and reeking in the shadow of the dumpster.

Although the store clerk is heavy – late twenties, probably thirty pounds overweight – the biker jacket girl drags him across the pavement like a ragdoll. She flashes a wicked grin at her partner and winks. Her teeth grow, an extra set sprouting from her gums like a shark's.

The store clerk is begging now – _take my money but don't hurt me, please, please, don't hurt me!_ – and his cries echo on pavement and cinderblock. But there's no one around to hear him, no one except Ben. He pulls out his phone and dials 911, praying that the beeps or his whispered plea for help won't be overheard. The tall guy nods to the biker jacket girl and the store clerk screams as his throat is ripped out.

Ben can't look away.

As they leave, sirens wailing a street away, the tall guy sniffs the air and flashes a knowing look towards the dumpster.

Five minutes later, when the cops come, the vampires – cus that's what they were, Ben knows it, he's seen enough supernatural movies and he _knows_ it – have cut and run, leaving a drained corpse behind. Ben is given a shock blanket, questioned gently, security tapes are pulled from the store to confirm his story, and a police officer drives him home. His mom's been worried sick, even though the cops called her. She hugs Ben on the doorstep, tears in her eyes as the officer rehashes the details, and Ben feels like a little kid again.

That night, he researches vampires.

The next few days are eerily quiet. No police leads, no new attacks, nothing. But there's something stirring in Ben's gut – this isn't over, not even close. Those vampires are coming back, maybe even coming for him. The tall greasy one _knows_ that Ben saw the attack. He's going to come back, but Ben's ready.

He blew all his saved up money on strings of garlic, wooden stakes, a rosary, and a machete, sneaking the vamp-hunting items into the house when his mom left for work in the evening. There's garlic strung up around the kitchen, all over his room, above every door, and even stuffed in the drywall in his mom's room because she'd never let him hang it up there and more than anything, Ben needs her to be safe. He hides the wooden stakes in convenient locations around the house and makes a sort of holster-sling for the machete as a last resort. The rosary has a secure nest in his pocket.

For a week, there's nothing. A few questions from the police, some repeat questions from a lone fed with a charcoal-gray suit and growly black car, and then a whole lotta nothing. The whole house smells like garlic but Ben plays the scared little boy card – even though he's fifteen now – and his mom lets him keep it up for peace of mind. He can see the worry in the lines on her face.

The vampires come a week and a half later.

It's almost eleven at night, Ben is up out of nervous habit, keeping a watch, and his mom is asleep. Safe, he hopes, in her garlic-protected room. And then there's a crash downstairs, an echoing laugh.

It's time.

Hand fumbling in the dark, he straps the machete on and pulls a bathrobe to hide it. His right hand drifts freely, ready to pull it out at the last second; his left clutches the rosary. Ben wedges a chair underneath the handle of the door to his mom's room – he _needs_ her to be safe, she can't get in the way, he has to do this alone – and waits at the top of the stairs, every sense alight and tingling with a fiery anticipation. He's never been this scared before – never felt this _alive_. 

They come.

The tall one, the leader, stands halfway up the stairs and stops, holding his hand up to the biker jacket girl. He inhales deeply, a grin breaking over his face.

"Someone went a little heavy on the garlic, eh?" He laughs, teeth flashing white. "You know that doesn't work on us, little boy?"

Ben says nothing.

"And those stakes you hid… waste of money as far as vampire hunting's concerned," he continues. "Better for gardening."

"Go away," Ben says. His voice is steady, if scarcely above a whisper. "Get out of my house."

"Nah, I think I'll rip out your throat and drink your blood first." The vampire starts up the stairs; the biker jacket vamp whimpers with anticipation, a hungry look in her eyes.

"I'm warning you right now, stay back!" Ben holds up the rosary – it probably won't work, but he needs to save the machete as a surprise attack.

The tall vamp pauses for a moment and Ben's heart leaps.

"What, are you Catholic?"

And then he lunges.

In one fluid motion, Ben unsheathes the machete and slashes towards the vampire's exposed neck. Blood sprays on the wall; the head flies off. The trunk sways for a moment and then falls with a thud.

Silence.

The biker girl vampire stares wide-eyed at Ben, terrified. He holds the machete out, arms steady, and finds that he's no longer afraid.

"Get out," he growls.

She flees.

The door to his mother's room rattles, she's crying, begging to be let out, for God's sake, don't hurt her son. Ben stares at the body on the floor, the blood on the walls, on his machete, on his clothes and hands and face. Something clicks into place and for the first time in a long time, he finally feels _right_.

That gaping black hole, although still there, is just a little bit smaller.


	2. Part Two

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews, favs, and follows! This was supposed to be a one shot; I typed it up one morning at the spur of the moment but there are a lot of loose ends. I didn't wrap things up very well. So here's an epilogue of sorts. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, y'all. _

_-LdD_

Dean Winchester is angry, and when he's angry, there isn't a corner on this earth where his target – this time, that skinny leather jacket-wearing vamp bitch – can hide. This vamp threatened his family, and family is everything. Family is what Dean bleeds for, what he's died for, what he's crawled out of Hell and Purgatory for. Nothing will come between him and family.

The vampire cowers at his feet but Dean's eyes are cold; he ends her life with a single swing of his machete. Blood sprays the trees, his face and jacket, the dead leaves on the ground. For a moment, all Dean can do is pant, his face still twisted in a feral snarl.

It's over.

He burns the corpse, disposing of it without ceremony, and heads back to the motel. The Impala growls as he whips it into a tight spot, tires squealing. When he lets himself into the smelly motel room, he heads straight for a bottle of whiskey, ready to drown his sorrows and his feelings and his love. After pouring a glass, he sits and stares at it for a moment.

God, he's the exact same shitty father to Ben that John Winchester was to him.

He takes a sip; the cheap whiskey tastes like dirt. Actually, he can't really taste it – you know you drink too much when 80 proof whiskey tastes a bit like water. Dean leans back, staring at the glass for a second, and then on impulse, hurls it at the wall. The glass shatters, spraying alcohol all over the room. He's panting, eyes wild; it's like he's been kicked in the gut, he wants to cry but the incumbent tears burn worse than any alcohol.

He finds his phone in his back pocket and fumbles for the speed dial. A hundred miles away, someone picks up on the other end.

"Dean?"

He takes a shaky breath and then forces himself to speak.

"Sam, I need you."

Sam has his own car now – a douched up 2012 Mustang, complete with iPod jack and satellite radio – and he practically flies to the address Dean stutters out over the phone. And when he walks into the motel room, panic and worry flashing across his face, he is shocked to find a nearly untouched bottle of whiskey on the table, and Dean Winchester sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at a blank, silent television.

"Dean?" he ventures.

"Do you really believe in free will, Sam?" Dean doesn't look up, just keeps starting at the TV. "'Cus I'm not sure I do anymore."

"Dean…" Sam sits down on the edge of the bed. "What happened?"

Dean laughs; it's a cold, hollow sound. "You know how we fought so hard against Lucifer and Zachariah and Michael? Team Free Will, and all that?"

"Yeah…?"

"See, I'm not so sure anymore. Yeah, sure, we proved the douchebags with wings wrong, but what if there's more than just the big destiny stuff? What if there are only circles and spirals?" He struggled for a moment to find the right words. "What if, even though I don't have any biological kids, I'm still destined to be a shitty dad to Ben. Just like Dad was a shitty father to us, and Henry Winchester was a shitty dad to our Dad. Wheels within wheels, Sammie."

Sam's eyebrows wrinkled upward; he tried for a half-smile. "It wasn't really Henry's fault, that was Abaddon—"

"Yeah, but it happened anyway!" Dean grabbed the front of Sam's shirt. "Do you even know where I've been the past two weeks, Sam?"

"No, I -"

"Trying to track down some vampires before they killed, Lisa and Ben – that's what I've been doing! And you know what? I failed! They could've died!"

"Dean, I -"

He shook Sam. "And you know what else? Ben killed one of them!"

"What?"

"Ben killed one of the vamps!"

There was a moment of wild-eyed silence from Dean before he finally spoke. "I've tried so hard to stay away, Sam… I've tried so hard to keep them away from this life. I don't want Ben to be a hunter – I thought since he's not a Winchester by blood, he's not cursed. If I could just stay away, he'd be fine."

"It's not your fault, Dean."

"Have you ever noticed that we break everything we touch, Sam?"

Silence.

"So what are you going to do, Dean?" Sam said bitterly. "Get Cas to wipe Ben and Lisa's memories again? Cover it all up?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do."

And Sam doesn't know either. It's not the first time, but the Winchesters have no easy answers to this one.

"I'm going to bed," Sam says finally.

Late that night, with the lights off and the AC unit whining outside, Dean finds that he can't sleep. He gets up, pulls on a shirt, and wanders the parking lot of the motel until he comes to rest by the Impala. The pavement is cool under his bare feet; the Impala glimmers under a streetlight.

He can leave Ben and Lisa far behind, jump in the Impala and never come back again – at least until the next time they're threatened by something supernatural. Circumvent the Winchester curse, let Ben – _maybe_, that's the key word – live a normal life.

Or he could go back, explain, get Cas to put their memories back, beg, apologize, vow to protect them with his last breath – he can be a good dad to Ben. And Ben will become a hunter. Just like Dean.

He has to choose.

When the sun rises the next morning, there are dark purple-black circles under Dean's eyes. He walks with a shuffle, his gaze flickers from one thing to the next, but something else is different. Behind the fear, behind the exhaustion, there's a new element.

_Purpose_.

He calls Cas, leaves a terse voicemail as he backs the Impala out of the cramped parking spot, and drives to Lisa's house. As he parks alongside the grass, he realizes that his hands are shaking. The front walk is evenly paved, flowers along the edges, the doorbell rings before he realizes that he's touched it.

The door opens partway; Lisa looks cautious, confused.

"Lisa…" he starts, searching her face for any sign of memory. "It's Dean. Dean Winchester?"

Nothing.

"Do I know you?" she asks, eyebrows arcing upwards. Her hand rests on the doorknob, ready to pull it shut.

He clears his throat, shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "I can explain—"

"Dean?"

Dean freezes, lips parted, eyes wide. He turns around slowly, facing the new voice.

It's Ben.

They stare at each other, carbon copies with green eyes and brown hair and a troubled look. Behind them, Lisa's eyes widen slowly.

Ben coughs, shuffles his feet. "Dean?"

For a moment, he can't find his voice. Dean struggles, trying to find the words, and then settles for something simple. "It's me, Ben."

Silence poises on the tip of a knife; neither one can speak.

And then Ben's eyes get big.

"I remember."


End file.
